DEALBOOK; PricewaterhouseCoopers Is Fined In Britain

By MARK SCOTT

Published: January 7, 2012

LONDON -- British authorities announced on Friday that they had fined the accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers 1.4 million, or $2.2 million, for failing to safeguard client assets at JPMorgan Chase's securities business in London.

The fine is the largest ever imposed by Britain's Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board, the local regulator.

The penalty relates to the accountancy firm's failure to notify JPMorgan that it hadn't separated more than $8 billion of its clients' money from the bank's own accounts in filings with Britain's Financial Service Authority from 2002 to 2008.

British authorities have cracked down on banks separating client's money from their own assets after similar issues arose after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The American bank reported the mistake to the Financial Service Authority in 2009, and received a 33 million fine for the oversight in 2010, the largest fine issued by the financial services regulator.

''The tribunal found that P.W.C. had committed misconduct in respect of each allegation in the disciplinary complaint before it,'' Britain's Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board said in a statement. ''The tribunal found the misconduct in this case to be very serious.''

The regulator added that the 1.4 million fine had been reduced from 2 million because of P.W.C.'s cooperation.

''We are pleased that this matter has now been concluded. We regret that one aspect of our work on the private client money report to the FSA fell beneath our usual high standards,'' the accountancy firm said in a statement.

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.